I labored over the differences between MLK Jr. and Malcolm X for my entire college career. I never came away with an opinion of whether one was more successful in the Civil Rights Movement or not. However, MLK's message penetrated in communities that Malcolm's could not, if only because his relationship to religion/church eased those who were and were afraid of change.

I tend to side with him at this juncture. Other times, yes, I will rage and froth, (most of the time, I do) but this doesn't seem like the time to do so.

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*ducks behind shelter*

I think that his position on gay marriage is wrong, and I think that his views on homosexuality are laughably flawed. For the record, I completely disagree with him, and I don't think he should be part of the inauguration.

But I do think that he's different from the "God hates fags" pastor. If you listen to what he says, he says that God never made a human being that God didn't love, or that Jesus didn't die for. He is not calling for violence against gays. (I know, as consolations go, that's underwhelming.)

I wish that we could achieve instant, permanent change in everybody's minds about gay civil rights. But I don't believe we can. Victory will come, but change in the hearts and minds of many religious conservatives is going to take some time. It does mean something when a man of his position in the evangelical community will say that their response to people who disagree with them on the issue of homosexuality should be love. To me, that speaks of a man whose mind could be changed. And I think that's what Melissa Etheridge saw in him.

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I'm not saying he's intransigent; I am saying that at this point, it's not like he hasn't been confronted by actual gay people and actual families affected by the exclusion of gay people from state-sponsored marriage. it's weird to assume he lives in a bubble and that one day we will finally manage to enlighten him.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I don't mind talking to him, but I think we are all fooling ourselves (without fooling him) if we think this decision to give him a nationl stage has said anythin to him about changing his views. It's at least clear from the video that he received it as a ratification rather than a rebuke.

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Sorry, you're wrong there. Do you know how much money various churches threw into that campaign?

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I also drank, and had sex with a woman, and robbed a neighbor, and burned a cross fashioned out of Q-tips.

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I have a big problem with this, because there are other Christian leaders to preach tolerance. And I have no interest in giving an intolerant (and powerful) person a place on the national stage, for any reason.

Also, I don't think this has generated any discussion aside from what we've all been talking about for years.....

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But I think it does say something that a lot of very inspiring figures (Gandhi, MLK Jr., etc) found religious faith to be worth something.

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But, I am not religious.

I think there is a great deal of value to be found in faith.....but faith in what? In God? I morality? I can't take that kind of faith seriously, not when it's all been twisted into such intolerant ideology.

And, if these people are in the minoirty, where ARE the moderate religious people? Are they hiding?

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Melissa's approach reminds me of the line from the Godfather: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It's why Bono courted Jessie Helms.

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You're better than me though. I still have problems respecting people of 'actual faith'. That's my issue and I'll work through it, but for some reason, every time I hear that someone I like is a regular church goer, my heart just sinks. So I respect you for your respect for them.

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Why should it be virtuous to believe in something unproveable? That kind of belief may move many people to do good, but it moves just as many to be irrational and intolerant. Faith is like fire, you know? It just is -- not an inherent good nor an inherent evil -- and whether it's good or bad depends on how people use it. Religious faith has the advantage of aligning people to have the same, or similar viewpoints, and therefore is helpful in organizing movements. If you can convince them that your movement is alignment with their religious views, you're more likely to gain their support.

Rick Warren is in a position of a lot of power in that regard. If he would tell his congregation what he told privately to Melissa Etheridge, who knows what kind of positive difference he could make. But in the church setting, he chooses to use his position as pastor of people's faith to inflame bigotry and ahistorical interpretations of scripture.

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@Beets.Go.On: but your "left alone" is someone else's oppression, and I'm sorry, moderates, but to the extent you're not willing to speak out in favour of causes you claim to believe in, you are complicit in their inability to gain traction.

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I have no idea what the problem is with Protestant moderates though. Can't they just go to a different, more tolerant church? I don't get Protestants or Evangelicals at all...

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You can practice empathy, moral-awareness and sensitivity to others' pain without faith (but by all means, I can applaud those who are in part influenced by such norms they learned within the context of religion)...and you can use faith to tell a group of consenting adults, "Hey, you don't deserve marriage rights--fuck you, and fuck the marriage you enjoyed for, oh, a year or so."

It's kind of hard to "build bridges" if you compared same-sex adult couples to pedophiles and incestuous couples who ARE actually endangering the health/genes of the children they produce.

And again...how DARE these people LIE to justify what they're doing. They're re-writing the history and nature of marriage, sex, and the family--SPECIFICALLY as it existed as a religious institution, in addition to what it meant as an economic/political one. It's only a few steps down from saying the Holocaust was a lie, flipping off all of the f'ed up things that have gone on in the name of "marriage." Those 5,000 years DID include betrothal to multiple brides and to minors, you crazy POS.

Uphold the standard of the heterosexual marriage and family based on the dignity and the needs of all parties involved--fine. But don't lie and brush off polygamy or what this "tradition" meant for women and girls, especially to besmirch and demonize gays.

Someone needs to pull out a Bible and take these a-holes out on their own terms...quote a couple of passages from the Bible on how and when to sell your kids, and what exactly "wives" were privy to.

And regarding Warren's spiel that being gay is a "choice", just as (his own considered, but not acted on) lust is...Jesus said the lustful eye should be cut out.

I'll be waiting with a cup.

You think the West would figure out how to uphold human dignity (especially for the vulnerable--like children) WITHOUT allowing to religion to hinder so much progress, for all the contempt, fear and superiority some of these right-wing churches hold for some of the legitimately troubling things that go on in the Muslim world with regards to treatment of women. How do they think the Puritans held women and marriage? Or Mormons (and certain present fundamentalist sects)?

Liars, liars, liars. How DARE THEY.

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This reminds me of lots of non-violent protesting in the past. You keep acting like a saint and let the other people show their ugly sides. Eventually most people wonder who the real monster is.

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